


Mimosa Pudica

by Yuilhan



Series: Haikyuu!! Works [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Crushes, F/M, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, No beta I will die on this hill, One-Sided Attraction, Other, ushiyachi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 17:34:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18370796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuilhan/pseuds/Yuilhan
Summary: Tonight was tortuous; a test of Hitoka’s desired confidence as it battled her anxiety. She wished the foliage would swallow her up. Hoped that the acer’s leaves were casting red light upon her flushed face. But to be here, to be beside him, outside of the constraints of volleyball and competitions, to know more about him even if he didn’t care, that was a bittersweet reward indeed.





	Mimosa Pudica

**_Mimosa Pudica_ , or**

**The Sensitive Plant**

****

What kind of business meeting is conducted after working hours? One that occurs during dinner, and at the private estate of the client one is hoping desperately to impress.

That was what Hitoka’s mother had told her, anyway. They had travelled to the other side of town from their apartment, closer to Karasuno than Hitoka would have expected for a crucial meeting with Madoka’s clientele. Usually, Hitoka’s mother would be requested to attend meetings at a ‘Head Office’, or over dinner, or somewhere in Sendai where the bigger corporations wished to build their office buildings. Those were normal places, and Hitoka learned to live with Madoka’s stress, eating alone most nights, and coming back to their empty apartment after school because her mother was stuck in the subway station queues.

However, tonight was different. Madoka was dressed winningly, yet still modestly. She’d pulled the plastic protective wrapper off of her cashmere suit hung in her wardrobe—worn only on the most special of occasions, because the dry-cleaning bill afterwards was a nightmare to sort—smoothed her hair into a perfect chignon and applied a classy layer of muted red lipstick. Madoka was a fine red rose hiding her barbs. She was luxurious and practical, not to be taken lightly. If not for the leather portfolio tucked under her arm, Madoka wouldn’t have looked like she was going to a business meeting.

What Hitoka didn’t understand was why she wore her best clothes and got dragged along. She hadn’t worn this party dress since a few years ago; the first and last time her mother ever brought Hitoka to her company’s Christmas meal. Families were encouraged to attend, but Hitoka had felt out of place—too old and unsure to muck in with the younger children, but too immature to join the high school age kids’ conversations. Then one of the younger children spilt his juice on Hitoka’s pale pink dress, and Madoka never brought her along again. Though the stain over the front of her skirt had been removed, the memories remained.

Shivering in her cap-sleeved dress, Hitoka wished she’d thought to bring a cardigan or shawl with her. It was warm in the subway, on the trains, and in the taxi they’d taken to the client’s home, so she hadn’t thought ahead about later on when the night air would nip at her arms and neck.

Idly, she rubbed at the raised hairs on her arms, then straightened her sleeves and smoother her skirt. Hitoka was slowly learning to hate the colour pink in large quantities. The dress was ugly. She felt ugly. She would have anxiously twiddled the small side ponytail she usually styled her hair into, but tonight she wore her short locks down; pushed back only by a thin metal headband decorated with fake pearls and star shaped beads.

Madoka tapped her daughter’s forearm warningly. Stop fidgeting, the gesture said.

They were stood at the outer gates of a large property. Hitoka knew her mother dealt with some very wealthy clients, but it was one thing to know of something and another to experience it. This plot of land had to be the size of a small town; Hitoka could see the ornate ridge tiles atop the roof of the giant house from over the top of the imposing gates.

Hitoka vaguely recognised the area they were in. It was close to Shiratorizawa, she was sure. A prickle of betrayal brought heat into her face and ice to her veins. What would the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Team think if they knew she was cavorting with the enemy?

The gates swung open after what seemed like an age had passed, a long drive way and then a grandiose porch to wait under for the front door to open lay ahead. Hitoka had been too highly strung to stop and look at what was around her. She’d completely missed the name plaque hung against the stone walls surrounding the property. As if that weren’t obvious enough, the metal mail box drilled to one gate had the correct kanji printed on the front. _Ushijima._ If Hitoka did notice it, she would pretend she saw otherwise or misread the characters because this was her nightmare coming to life—

“Please, come in.”

Before Hitoka knew it, those three words were her undoing.

Before she knew it, Hitoka and her mother were being led inside.

Before Hitoka could hit the brakes, feign an illness, or run screaming into the cold, dark night, she crossed the threshold.

Hitoka recognised the one who had opened the door. She wished she could rub at her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, but she knew it would irritate her mother. Instead she took the guest slippers that Ushijima offered to her while her mother hissed under her breath to be polite to the boy, then followed both him and her mother dazedly down the hallway to where they would be eating. Outside of the family’s dining room there was a reception area of sorts which doubled as an informal place to wait on guests and take a finger of some sort of before-dinner spirits.

Dinner was a stifled affair. The adults talked amongst themselves. Ushijima’s parents nattered about anything that wasn’t business to Madoka, who laughed tightly and hid her irritation behind her napkin. She made sure to smear her lipstick all over the expensive white cotton. Hitoka sullenly pushed her food around her plate, wishing she was anywhere else and not having to use silverware instead of chopsticks. At one point she chanced a look at the youngest Ushijima in the room, and quickly averted her gaze when she found him looking directly at her.

She coughed, trying to swallow an unexpectedly rough leaf of lettuce from her salad, and reached for her napkin. Hitoka was stunned as Ushijima pushed back his chair and poured her a glass of water from the jug set between them. He did nothing to acknowledge her whispered thank you while he sat back down, so Hitoka took a deep stuttering breath and clenched her jittering hands tighter around her cutlery.

Her heart thumping in her chest had to be the loudest thing in the room; louder than her mother’s polite laughter and the screech of a knife against fine china. How could no one else hear her heart beating? This was unfair.

Dessert was soon served, and Hitoka relished this course. Delighted that she had something to occupy herself with once more. The tiny trio of cheesecakes she had been given did not fill her stomach, and the sweet compote served on the plate beside them couldn’t take the soured taste of the cream from her tongue.

The time came for the ‘children’—if one could call Wakatoshi ‘I was born an Old Man’ Ushijima a child—to vacate the dining room while negotiations took place. Hitoka expected Ushijima’s mother to join them, but she remained to play hostess while Madoka and the Ushijima Patriarch talked business. Heart thumping and blood thrumming past her ears, Hitoka took Ushijima’s arm as he extended it towards her.

“Shall we go?” he said, and she nodded in compliance.

He didn’t stoop to her height, and Hitoka wasn’t tall. Between them they looked like a parent and child stumbling awkwardly down a corridor to nowhere in particular. The crisp fabric of his shirt made Hitoka conscious about her own attire. He filled his clothes well, but she was still wearing a party dress she could fit into at thirteen. Most girls her age couldn’t do that.

Most girls weren’t clinging to the person they liked either.

Hitoka wasn’t sure when it had started. She wasn’t sure if her crush was a manifestation of her fear that had spilled over into her hormones. On all accounts, Wakatoshi Ushijima should terrify her. He was huge. He looked like he’d been carved out of rock. He talked about farming and sustainability (which really should have tipped her off about why Madoka was talking shop with his father) like he was forty-eight and not eighteen. He was Karasuno’s opposition, though they’d stomped Shiratorizawa a few weeks back on the way to Nationals. Hitoka felt a jolt of pleasant terror go through her whenever he was mentioned in conversation (‘Japan’ this, ‘Japan’ that), resulting in a wan pallor and nervous twitching and the _thump thump thump_ of her heart.

She hadn’t breathed a word about her feelings to anyone. Hitoka Yachi could deal with this on her own, because how could she ever ask someone if the person they liked also scared them half to death? Was she even afraid of him? She didn’t know, and it could have been a misguided culmination of others’ opinions and her own captivation.

“Do you mind?”

Hitoka jolted, nearly slipping on the tiled flooring. Ushijima righted her; his hand hovered lightly at the small of her back while she regained her balance.

When she asked what he meant, he pointed through the open doorway to a glass and brick extension to the back of the house. Hitoka knew from her mother’s sporadic attempts to lure her into architecture and design that this was an orangery. Brick walls and ornate windows constructed to trap the summer heat for exotic plants, and to provide a closer seat to nature in the wintertime without the nasty conditions. A place to enjoy delicate vegetation all year round. A veritable Edenic paradise. Potted orchids lined the windowsills closer to the fastidiously maintained outdoor gardens, with larger shrubs and miniature versions of outdoor trees placed into tubs around the sides of the room. And there was more foliage than room. A deep red acer tree stood sentinel over the only seat in the orangery; a drooping wingback chair with a white and violet jacket slung over one arm.

Ushijima gestured for Hitoka to take a seat, and she did just so, watching him disappear into the jungle of potted plants then emerge wearing gardening gloves and clutching a spray bottle. They cloying scent of florals and soil assaulted her while he pottered around the room, gently turning over the leaves and spritzing the orchids. He inspected the shoots of the trees within planters, taking a set of secateurs to one bonsai tree to snip at excess growth; softly plying the branches into submission. Another with slender leaves and unbecoming blooms shied away from his touch, yet he only smiled heartbreakingly and retracted his hand, leaving the plant all alone to unfurl.

Hitoka sat so very still that she was sure she was no longer breathing. Surreal. This evening was surreal. She had to make it normal somehow, if only to try and stop her heart from lurching out of her chest. The frightening feeling she’d felt before was slowly giving way to something far more dangerous as Ushijima inspected his indoor garden. Instead of cold dread warmth bloomed. The deft way his hands moved, the curl of his fingers and the twist of his wrist, was rapturous. If she trembled hard enough, would he take pity on her and ply her into a facsimile of Nature’s strength? Would he encourage her to blossom like the curious specimens in this room?

Those were silly thoughts for someone with a silly crush mistaking love’s confusion for metamorphosis. Only the other day she’d fallen a little deeper for Hinata’s wide, sunny smiles, and Kiyoko’s mysterious, knowing eyes. Hitoka didn’t feel like she had control anymore. Her heart was leaping before her mind could look, and she needed to wrestle herself back into order.

Volleyball was a safe topic, right? Of course it was. She asked. He swore under his breath, and it was so unexpected Hitoka could have mistaken it for the whisper of his secateurs.

“Training is fine.”

The garden seemed to wilt. Hitoka folded in on herself with a shiver. Ushijima’s presence grew in the room like a mountain looming over a snowscape. Gone was the warmth of the plants and the endearing hand that coaxed them into thriving. Hitoka shrivelled up under his attention. Volleyball wasn’t safe.

“How are Karasuno?”

Their exchanged pleasantries were short and barbed like the stems of the winter roses rising out of the window box. Their evergreen colour matched the ashamed flush splashed across Hitoka’s ears. The night drew on, and Hitoka lost track of time inside the orangery. Intermittent snips, spritzes, and sighs sounded. She shrank back into the drooping chair, desperate to curl her legs underneath her or at least bring her knees up to her chest. Madoka would throw a fit if Hitoka misbehaved, so she refrained to spare herself the lecture and the inevitable disappointed look.

Hitoka fiddled with the edge of her skirt; traced the patch were the juice stain once was. She licked at her lips, the skin felt dry and chapped. She felt cold and empty and knew that the frigid air outside would feel worse than she did right now.

Why did she have to feel like this? Why was she even here? There was no use for her here. It wasn’t as though Hitoka could do anything. Perhaps the negotiating parents had thought it would help their children pass the time during the half term break, or something to that extent. There was no place for Hitoka Yachi here. Tonight was tortuous; a test of Hitoka’s desired confidence as it battled her anxiety. She wished the foliage would swallow her up. Hoped that the acer’s leaves were casting red light upon her flushed face. But to be here, to be beside him, outside of the constraints of volleyball and competitions, to know more about him even if he didn’t care, that was a bittersweet reward indeed.

This evening would have to end at some point, and Hitoka knew that unless she made an effort to dog Wakatoshi Ushijima’s steps or prayed that Madoka invited her along to more business meetings, that this would be the last time she’d see him like this. They shared nothing but volleyball, and even then, managers weren’t all that interesting to aces. There was no common ground between them and why would Hitoka (shuddering, shaking, Villager B) with her conflicted feelings, tentatively hold her heart out to Wakatoshi Ushijima?  

“Are you cold?”

Her chin dipped, or maybe she shivered. Ushijima slid off his gardening gloves —also white and violet —dropped his shears onto the loamy top soil of the plant he was attending to, reached out, brushed her arm as he grabbed the forgotten jacket, and draped the fabric across her shoulders. She barely withhold  flinching back away from the sensation; could feel the hairs on her arms and neck raise and the skin begin to dimple.

He cleared his throat. She blinked. Her mouth popped open to utter a thank you, but Ushijima was once more invested in his plants. Hitoka bit her lip. The warmth was back and seeping into her skin. She shifted in her chair, slipping her arms into the too-big sleeves and wrapping the extra material around her like a jersey embrace. Dare she bury her nose in the upturned collar? Would it smell of anything other than the plants and the dirt and him?

A call rang down the hallway. They were being summoned back to the dining room. For all Hitoka knew, days could have passed. In actuality, it was a little under an hour and a half. She began to remove his jacket; while it was courteous of him to lend it to her, she’d have to manage on her way home. The warmth was back again, firing through her veins, and his scent clung to the ugly pink party dress.

“There’s no need—" He pushed the jacket back into her hands, and gratefully she zipped herself inside it again; dithering as a chill raced through her body. “I have more.” Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to Ushijima, but to Hitoka it was.

He did not follow her down the hall, which saddened her. Madoka’s eyebrows rose at the sight of the jacket. Back down the hallway there were led, off came the guest slippers and on went two sets of heels (one pair wickedly high, the other glittery, and ornamented with bows). The scent of flowers and top soil could not extend all the way to the front door, and tears pricked at Hitoka’s eyes for its loss. But the jacket was warm and so was she, and soon all scent would fade, and the night would be over. She’d burn her dress or accidentally rip it; spill some juice in the same place. Her silliness would go away, and the object of her affections would change.

“Here. Take this.” Ushijima had come, stalking down the hall with something tucked up in one arm.

Hitoka rolled up the sleeves of her loaned jacket, marvelling at the difference between her limbs and Wakatoshi’s. Cradled to her body was a small pot with the most unremarkable blooms situated within it; fringed leaves and puffed pink flowers—not unlike a weed— quivered as he moved.  Hitoka took the plastic pot from him. Her thumb hooked over the lip and into the dirt. Madoka hissed quietly that it was far past the time for them to leave this place.

The soil was slightly moist; he’d watered it before giving the plant to her. The leaves curled away from her touch, but Hitoka smiled. It was a wobbly sort of smile, though honest and happy. It was her, maybe him, trapped in this pot. An offering of sorts between two shy souls; one acknowledging the other but shrinking back from all attention.

 “Thank you. Goodnight.”

Awkward under his parents and Madoka’s scrutiny, he said, “And you also.”

Hitoka resolved to watch the flower grow. She’d treasure it forever; she’d treasure him if that day ever came. Not bad for an event she didn’t want to attend.

**Author's Note:**

> “But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit  
> Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,  
> Received more than all, it loved more than ever,  
> Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,--
> 
> For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;  
> Radiance and odour are not its dower;  
> It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,  
> It desires what it has not, the Beautiful!  
> […]
> 
> The Sensitive Plant was the earliest  
> Upgathered into the bosom of rest;  
> A sweet child weary of its delight,  
> The feeblest and yet the favourite,  
> Cradled within the embrace of Night.”  
> [—‘The Sensitive Plant’, Percy Bysshe Shelley](https://kalliope.org/en/text/shelley2003060601)
> 
>  
> 
>  **A/N 6/04/2019:**  
>  Just trying out something new. Had an idea and it kind of works? Idk. I still love Ushiyachi, so when I thought of this I knew I needed to follow it up. This started completely differently to how it ended; my main inspiration was France's song, 'Say It Again', which is why Ushijima and Yachi only say three words at any given time. It was challenging to try and convey everything else in three words or from Yachi's perspective. Then I wrote about the indoor garden and things sort of spiraled from there. You can't tell me Ushiwaka doesn't garden? It seems like the sort of thing he'd do in his spare time.
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think.
> 
>  
> 
> **Musical Inspiration**  
> [“No Plan” – Hozier, Wasteland Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXq_J29V5Io)
> 
>  
> 
> Come natter with me [here!](https://yuilhan-writes-things.tumblr.com/)


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